Requiem Read online

  Shock parted her mouth, replaced a blink later by a glimmer of amusement. Her arms flopped to the sides of her head atop the waves of hair spilled out around it.

  Bennett trembled when their hips aligned. Some innate, primal part of him knew the position. But the hormones had been dosed out of every shepherd so long that having them now was like experiencing them for the first time. Bracing the side of her face, he brushed her succulent lips with his. The pace of her glimmering heart jumped. “You are the most demanding—”

  She squinted up at him.

  “Hardheaded—”

  Atana rolled her eyes and scoffed.

  Containing his laughter made his stomach flip. “Stunning creature I’ve ever had the pleasure of working alongside.” Bennett lowered his face to hers, his fingers weaving through her hair.

  “I’m a scarred, broken mess, Jameson.”

  Scars, in his mind, were warnings of acquired strength. Hers were uncountable.

  He wanted to try.

  “Beautiful.” He nudged her cheek. “No arguing.”

  Atana beamed up at him in her subtle way. Few could look at her long enough to notice the emotional soul behind her mask. She’d led the mutiny against the Suanoa, taking on the imperials herself. Agutra, still smoldering in the aftermath of its reaping, drifted around Earth a free vessel because of her.

  His respect for her was insurmountable.

  Her legs slid out and around his, her firm thighs pressing in, sending leather gliding against his tactical black. The winds eased and heated around their bodies.

  Caressing the soft skin of her neck with his mouth, he returned the nibble below her collarbone, adding a little more force.

  “Ow!” Her palm smacked his exposed side. The sting made him jerk his head up. Glowering playfully, Atana pointed a finger up at him. “That was intentional.”

  A sly grin spread his whiskered cheeks. “You should never tease a man as desperate as me.” Or as serum-resistant. He traced the arch of her cheek with a thumb, planting a kiss between her brows. The light of their hearts flashed between them washing his living room in a rave of green hues.

  “Thank you for rescuing me from interrogation.” Atana shifted beneath him, summoning his eyes.

  Nuzzling into the space between her nose and cheek, his breath fell, hot against her skin. She had no idea how committed he was to her. He could drink in her sweet spice for eternity while the universe burned and not bat an eye.

  Her fingers traveled the contours of his back muscle evoking an urge so raw he had to turn away to control it. The sensation burrowed through his hips, a tickling energy that piqued in his tailbone.

  She didn’t deserve to be treated like an animal.

  Atana couldn’t possibly feel the same as he did. Not to this violent intensity. It made him wonder why she was still there, with him. She had Azure. The two were Novas together. Tonight had to be special, an exception. It was too divine.

  Something had to break.

  “Is this because I’m injured?” He jerked his nose toward his bandaged arm.

  Atana’s brows knitted for a barely visible second. “No.”

  “Because of the mutiny? Saving Earth? Freeing the slaves? A—careless celebration?”

  Thunder rumbled close.

  Her frown lingered a moment longer. “None of that.”

  A sigh begged to burst out but, at the last second, he managed to stifle it. “Sorry.” He wouldn’t ask about Azure, unwilling to back her into such a corner. “Thank you—for loving me, even if only for the night. I’m so tired of living this senseless life alone. The numbness and isolation feels like it’s killing me. It’s been so long since I’ve been myself that I don’t know what’s happening inside anymore. The withdrawal is different, it’s—”

  She cupped his cheek in a hand. “I told you; I understand.”

  Pressing her fingers to his face, he memorized the shape and movement of every fingertip. “But you’re not—human.”

  “Neither are you, Jameson.”

  He brushed off the distracting reminder Midas had clawed fingers into his bloodstream. “Either way, best dream I’ve ever had.”

  “Jameson,” she condescended. “This isn’t a dream. This is Ether. Pay attention to the details. Dreams are muddled, sensations delayed. How long does it take you to feel my touch?”

  Atana craned up, burying her lips into his. The way she dragged out every kiss made him wonder how she truly felt.

  Bracing her neck, he kissed her back moving his mouth over hers with passionate rhythm. She followed without hesitation.

  “Well?” Atana uttered in a stolen breath.

  Every sensation was immediate. He relished the luscious heat of her tongue as it snugged up to his. “I don’t know. I think I need more reminders.”

  Her eyes lit with fire above a spreading grin. She pushed against his chest in mock distaste.

  Bennett chuckled.

  Throbbing heat surged through his injured shoulder. “What is—Ether?” he asked, hoping to earn a little time to sort the new agony. This was beyond the prior nuisance. It was intolerable.

  “Just another dimension of reality.”

  Rapid beeps from his flashing wristband cut the air between them.

  His lungs struggled through the burn vibrating out into every nerve, draining his strength. Pain wasn’t taking its time to invade his dream either. A whining grunt slipped his gritted teeth.

  Atana lifted her forehead to his, her fingers combing up and into his hair. “You’re not alone, Jameson. You will never be alone again.”

  Her voice was different like it had two simultaneous sources. Bennett retracted to study the woman beneath him through watering eyes. Atana’s skin had dulled to gray, dark stripes now covering some of her scars. Her transition, he’d almost forgotten it. Atana’s gaze was radiant with concern. He blinked and tried to shake the unusual sight away.

  Why? He growled. Why can’t I have anything I want? He begged to stay another few minutes in her arms. But the searing sensations in his arm were relentless and growing.

  Wake up. Something’s wrong. “Wake up!”

  Chapter 3

  BENNETT’S MIND SPUN like the bunk room around him. When his sight cleared, he saw it again, the reflection of his golden irises in the teal eyes tracking his tears as they came pouring out, steaming hot.

  I’m hallucinating.

  “No, Jameson.”

  His ears couldn’t be working right. Just a dream. Please, let this just be a—

  “No.”

  There it was again, the two letters that screwed with his understanding of reality.

  The band on his wrist beeped frantically. Glancing at it, he shook his head and blinked hard. It couldn’t be right. His adrenaline saturation level was off the charts. His body temperature was fifty degrees above survivable and climbing.

  A pressure against his side made him look up. Atana stood in partial Xahu’ré form, yelling at the workers gathered in the entrance. There was desperation in her voice as, to him, the world seemed to slow. “I need Paramor, now! Hurry!” Her hands were covered in fresh blood.

  Azure stood beside her, arms crossed.

  “What’s going on?” Bennett wheezed.

  “You’re burned all over.” Her voice had never sounded so meek.

  He tried to sit up. “What—how?”

  Atana stopped him with a hand to his shoulder, the other busy keeping a bandage over one of his open wounds. “Don’t you remember last night?”

  Scanning himself, he shrieked. His body broiled like a pit of hot coals. “I was hit on my arm. Why is it everywhere? Is it an infection, like you said?”

  Bending over him, she brushed the sweat-soaked strands of hair from his forehead with her fingers, encouraging him to rest back against the singeing pillow. “That’s not what I am talking about.”

  He couldn’t help but peek with the loose dress she had been given to wear. What he saw confused him even more: a mark,
where he had bit her chest in his dream.

  A dream— Dear God, let this be a dream.

  “Ours are not like humans.” She dabbed at one of the burns seeping on his stomach.

  Pangs erupted in his core. Bennett let out a guttural cry. He grabbed a fistful of her dress and the blankets beneath him. Through the golden filter coating his vision, he saw Atana turn above him, pleading for Azure to help.

  Bennett’s ears rang with the sharp pitch common of a high fever. The sounds around him were fading. His team stood out of arms’ reach—Panton holding Josie tight, Cutter keeping a wide-eyed Tanner behind him. Every one of them remarked their disbelief, orange light flickering across their uniforms.

  Sulking around to the other side of the bed, Azure gestured to Bennett and shrugged. His voice was muddled and hard for Bennett to understand. “This is nothing I have seen before.”

  Please, Azure. We have to try. You heard what the prospector said. Atana’s voice was unusually clear in his hazy mind.

  You were there? Bennett stammered.

  Azure snarled at him. She showed me what happened.

  Bennett groaned, fingers curling into tight, hot fists. I swear it was a dream, no consequences!

  Releasing his arms, Azure grumbled and formed a perimeter around two of Bennett’s burns with his fingers, uttering a chant under his breath.

  Wounds stretched, receding inward. Pain was replaced by nauseating shifts of crawling skin. Bennett threw his head back and grunted. The veins in his neck and forearms rose. Why are you helping me, Azure? You don’t like me.

  Azure let out an irritated sigh. “I am not doing it for you. I am doing it for her. You weren’t controlling your drifts. You didn’t give her a choice!” He snorted, thrusting a finger at his own forehead. “You could’ve killed her! If we die in Ether, we die here! Mind, body, spark are the triad. If one breaks, life cannot exist!”

  Searing jabs shot through Bennett’s back, causing him to arch on the cot. “At least I knew it was too good to be true,” he rasped.

  Atana shifted back from the table, her hands falling to her sides. I’m sorry.

  The sickening sting made Bennett reach for her. Please, don’t go. Their Ether dream was the least of his worries. He felt like a frightened, forgotten child again, the universe burning his last pieces to ash.

  With a frustrated sway of her head, she shouted over her shoulder, “Where is Paramor?”

  The silvery man rounded the hut, hurrying in to where the three were situated in the corner. His steps slowed on approach, catching Bennett’s attention.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Bennett swallowed against a painfully dry mouth. “I’m not trying to.”

  “I know.” Paramor touched some of the abscesses to inspect the damage. “I’m afraid it must run its course.”

  Atana slipped her strong fingers into Bennett’s, genuine pity and fear filling her eyes. But the grimace she wore when she squeezed his fingers said the most.

  Forgive me.

  Bennett clenched his teeth, crying out through them as his skin kindled alight. The burns consumed his convulsing body, leaving no skin unscathed. His rapid breaths weren’t fast enough to ease the pain or dizziness.

  Azure offered a hand to Bennett and nodded earnestly, all hint of animosity wiped from his face. Bennett grabbed a hold with flaming fingers.

  Aqua and sapphire sparks crawled outward from the Novas’ hands, protecting them from his heat.

  Paramor backed away. “Everyone out! Kiatna ruut!”

  In a torrent of swirling flares, the bunk room illuminated in blues and golds. Bennett watched his own team run from him. In that moment, he realized how it felt to be regarded as an alien—something not understood, different, an outsider.

  Even as an impartial shepherd, he’d judged someone.

  His pupils constricted desperately at the two still by his side. Atana clung to his right hand, muttering for him to hang on, that this wasn’t bad, that he was becoming something good.

  This didn’t feel like anything worthy of optimism.

  He shook his head trying to clear the confusion and looked to Azure. The warrior towered over him, head lowered as he whispered to himself.

  Bennett, feeling he was losing control, sent his own desperate request to the universe. Do whatever you must to me. Just don’t let me take any more lives tonight. Don’t hurt my friends.

  But he knew they were more than that. In the rubble of Agutra’s post-mutiny, Bennett had discovered an unexpected and precious gift. He had found what countless shepherds searched for: a sense of comfort when surrounded by those who cared. Atana and Azure standing in the fire with him meant more than they might ever understand. From now on, he would think of them as family.

  Minutes passed like hours, the fever of a transformation he didn’t want sending Healer Paramor’s hut up in flames. Row after row of Jesiar crops withered and fell to ash, his body ground zero.

  The looming duty of becoming a prospector, “guardian of the universe” he overheard Paramor explain while frantically evacuating workers from the fields, made Bennett doubt everything he’d ever lived for. His body was combusting—and surviving. The only thing left to do was make it out the other side with some of his wits intact.

  His stomach throbbed to the pulse of his heart, swelling with fluid. When it burst, an unbearable itch took control. Bennett shuddered, his arms limp in the grasp of two people at his sides, incapable of scratching the sensation away.

  Pressure built and fizzed inside him like heated and shaken soda pop, followed by an intense tightening as everything healed. He swallowed a gag. Human flesh, when it burned, had a nidorous stench, a violent contrast to a forgotten steak.

  The pattern of sensations repeated over his body: chest, thighs, toes, neck, face. Paramor had said it needed to run its course. He never mentioned how long it would take. Did anyone know anything for certain anymore, or were they guessing based on a loosely written prophecy?

  Please make it stop.

  “I wish I knew how, if we even could.” Atana’s soothing voice wove through the tirade of questions, tuning them into an ephemeral song. It left a spicy-sweet taste on Bennett’s tongue, something of allspice and cardamom mixed with honey—a welcome distraction.

  The cot beneath him crumbled into charred logs. Too exhausted and disoriented to resist, Bennett let his body settle to the floor, uncaring. She leaned over his right shoulder, her protected touch like gentle static from a blanket, squeezing his fingers in hers.

  Azure towered over Bennett’s left side, scrutinizing the change. His eyes held a fear Bennett didn’t think was possible. The man was scarred to high hell and unbearably cantankerous. His striped, gray skin coated in a scintillating shield, a hint of pity overshadowing his sapphire gaze.

  Every bit of control Bennett could grasp focused on the next inhale, struggling through the hot knives puncturing his ribs. His wheeze puffed glimmering clouds of cinders into the air. Through cracked eyelids, he saw orbiting auburn lights fade in and out. He felt like a dehydrated drunk on the storming seas of purgatory outside the devil’s gates.

  His eyes rolled back. Just one more breath. Bennett had lost the capacity to worry about the damage the Suanoan plasma pulses had done to Earth during the battle and how pissed Azure was he’d carelessly fooled around with Atana in the dreamland of Ether last night. Everything was ash in the wind.

  Turquoise sparks crackled out from Atana’s skin when she brushed the short, umber bangs from his forehead. This wasn’t right. Bennett’s assignment was protecting her. Atana was UP’s most valued shepherd. In this condition, he was a risk to her, to everyone.

  Bennett hoped a prospector’s metamorphosis wouldn’t undermine its entire purpose by killing the one he needed to keep safe. Command didn’t have to order him. He knew it was his duty the second he’d laid eyes on Atana. Their connection existed at its own demand.

  Atana twisted, shouting an indecipherable question over the roar of Bennett’s fi
re. Paramor stopped outside the crumbling doorway, transfixed on the three of them. The Healer, untouched by the blaze, nodded once. “He is destined to track down and protect the life-sparks crucial to the universe’s plan.” Then the man charged off, directing more workers to the exits.

  Bennett didn’t have the gall to scoff at the silver humanoid or ask what in God’s name he meant.

  That was definitely unbelievable even with the hope that had shone in Paramor’s eyes.

  But being a living man on fire was too.

  When the apex of the ship, had collapsed from Atana’s supernova transformation, Bennett had thought they’d lost her and Azure. In that instant, his self-concept had blurred with the chilled emptiness of space. A fury, rooted in the hollowed corners of his heart, had bolted through his veins, breaking the serum’s grasp.

  The sparked fever kept growing. Bennett was still angry, battle-weary, and crushed. He’d pushed away concern for the heat within him, blaming it on fatigue, the explosion, stress-induced illness, anything but what he felt in his gut.

  I’m not the same.

  He wanted to thank Atana for not reporting his recent emotional infractions to Command, for not running, and for comforting him on his last day. The cyclical rawness of his skin kept his teeth clenched too tight to muster a smile of appreciation.

  Atana’s unusual glittering luminescence, a result of her and Azure’s explosion on the imperial’s abaddon deck, was a temporary condition, something she appeared able to switch on and off—Azure too. Novas, the workers of Agutra were calling them.

  Bennett wished for such control when the pressure inside his chest threatened to tear rib from sternum and punch through the blades of his shoulders. In his mind’s eye, he watched orbs bob and weave like stars in a nebula, some brighter, a few larger. Many were dim and on the edge of winking out. They huddled by the walls of the agricultural container. And after a blink, Bennett saw they were workers, staring at the products of their blood, sweat, and tears as he burned it to the ground.